A Case for Early Outreach Designed to Recruit CRM Professionals at the High School and College Level

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Outreach and Education: Examples of Approaches and Strategies from the Pacific Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cultural resources management (CRM) is at a pivotal moment in its history. Increasing workloads and an insufficient stream of early professionals have created a labor crisis. We are not alone in identifying recruitment as one solution. With the goal of increasing the number of bachelor’s degrees we have designed and tested outreach materials and activities aimed at inspiring high school and early college students to seek careers in CRM. This is a rewarding and fulfilling career for those who like the outdoors and want to make an impact in their communities concerning heritage preservation. We believe awareness of this career option is one key to recruitment. Our presentations are targeted for various groups, focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and are image heavy, with plenty of time for questions, and for our in-person trainings hands-on activities. We are doing these presentations in classrooms and other meeting places. This paper is a call to action. What else as CRM professionals and academics can we do to ensure a stream of qualified archeologists into the CRM field? Join us in this goal.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Outreach and Education: Examples of Approaches and Strategies from the Pacific Northwest   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37047.0